Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that young people with symptoms of breast cancer are not dismissed by healthcare professionals because of their age.

It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including breast cancer in young people, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster.

The National Health Service runs Help Us Help You campaigns in England to increase knowledge of cancer symptoms and address barriers to acting on them, to encourage people to come forward as soon as possible to see their general practitioner.

Through the National Cancer Plan for England: delivering world class cancer care, Cancer Alliances will receive £200 million of ring-fenced funding in 2026/27 to support sustainable improvements in cancer delivery and performance, with a key focus on improving early diagnosis rates. Cancer Alliances will focus on increasing awareness of cancer symptoms and supporting primary care to spot signs of cancer early, including breast cancer.

To ensure earlier detection and diagnosis in younger people, the Government will ensure that over time the neighbourhood multi-disciplinary teams that care for children and young people with cancer will have a lead paediatrician. We will help neighbourhood and primary care teams get the right information by supporting the dissemination of evidence-based guidelines and information, including from partners.